


Little Things (Can Pull You Under)

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: Birds of Prey (Comic)
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5678620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now with love comes strange currencies…and here is my appeal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Things (Can Pull You Under)

Dinah has never seen Barbara’s place look like this. Not ever, and she’s been responsible for a few take-out binges at Babs’s places over the years. This is not good, this is…

“Babs? Babs, honey, it’s Dinah,” she calls out. This is not good. “If you’re doing something stupid, I’m gonna embarrass the crap out of you.”

No answer, and Dinah’s heart is in her throat. She knew when Zinda called, all frantic, that things could not be good, but she didn’t expect…silence and chaos.

“Barbara,” she says, louder. “Barbara Gordon, you better be sleeping or I am going to…”

And then she hears a cough and for a second there are tears in Dinah’s eyes, because of course Babs wouldn’t take herself out of the game. But. But.

She’s actually lying on the couch, staring at the television, which is playing Judge Joe Brown.

It’s much, much worse than Dinah expected, and she gets down on her knees next to her friend and says, “Hey, girl. What are you doing, watching this brain-rotting crap?”

“Trying to die a slow death from eye cancer, obviously,” Babs says in a voice that wants to push Dinah away, but can’t find the time. “What do you think?”

“I think this place smells like a monkey cage,” Dinah says. “And that I wouldn’t let Roy get away with this crap during a bender, let alone you…”

Babs closes her eyes. “I’m smarter than Roy. Smarter than everyone, but not smart enough,” she says, not moving. “I’d tell you to go away, but you won’t, so sit down. Watch TV with me.”

“I’m going to get a trash bag,” Dinah says. “Because the fumes of dead take-out are making me sick.”

“Okay, that’s fine,” Barbara answers. Her eyes are still closed, and Dinah gets the trash bag, only to notice that during this self-destructive thing, Babs has discovered her love of Jack and Jose.

She’s going to kill Zinda and Helena with her bare hands for not letting her know earlier. Bare hands.

It takes three pretty big bags to get rid of everything, and the recycle bin Dinah sends down to Simmons is full and scandalous. She doesn’t care. Babs just lays there, not moving, not doing anything, just watching syndicated TV. She won’t even change the channels or try to annoy Dinah out of cleaning up.

“I’m about to call a doctor,” Dinah says, sitting down in Babs’s chair after she finishes. “You’re probably dehydrated and hung over and that can’t be good for you, and when is the last time you took a bath?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care,” Babs says. “I still use the potty regularly, if you’re curious about what to tell the doctor or social worker or whomever.”

“So you’re not even going to be mad at me?” Dinah asks. “Where’s the ‘you’re not my caseworker, Dinah!’ snarl I was expecting?”

“Whatever,” Babs replies. “I’m in the middle of a major depression and being a real bitch. You know it, I know it, anyone who paws through my garbage now knows it, so why waste my energy pretending?”

Dinah is now ready to get the entire JLA out here for an intervention and drag Babs to a hospital, because this is too scary for words. “Did you take something?” she asks. “Are you trying to make sure I don’t cheat you out of whatever supergenius suicide method you came up with, because I will full-on prostitute myself to Ra’s Al-Ghul and whoever else to resurrect you. So don’t think DEATH solves your problems, girlfriend. I know people.”

“Not suicidal. That would take caring,” Barbara says listlessly. “I don’t care. So watch TV with me. You can change the channel if you can find the remote. It’s probably under my ass or something. I wouldn’t feel it there.”

“You realize you’re freaking me out so much right now?” Dinah asks. “What’s wrong? What on earth has you acting like a zombie who doesn’t care it’s about to be decapitated?”

“I am a zombie. Already decapitated,” Babs says. “The brain’s always the last to know about these things.”

Dinah pauses. “What’s going on?”

“What’s always going on? Someone shut me down. Someone who I could bring down with three pictures, except that’s what we call Mutually Assured Destruction, Dinah. The end of everything,” Barbara says, struggling to sit up with an air of martyred resignation. “I have a copy of Franny and Zooey — you know, by Salinger? — on the third shelf of my bookcase. It’s all in there.”

None of this makes Dinah particularly happy, but she goes and gets the book and doesn’t actually wait to open it up, because with Babs in this sort of crazy nihilistic mood, she’s not thinking pausing would do any good.

And really, she’s right, because nothing Babs could say could make Dinah ready to see pictures of her, twined around a blonde girl who could almost be Dinah’s cousin but more stuck-up. Even though neither of them is wearing much, Dinah can smell the rich girl on her.

Babs is looking at this girl, this blonde rich bitch, like she hung the moon, resting her chin on the girl’s shoulder, and they’re kissing in another one, and that’s probably nipple in the third picture and these are just…

Mutually Assured Destruction.

“What’s her name?” Dinah asks, sitting down again and hoping the shock’s not too obvious.

“Katarina Armstrong,” Barbara says.

“And Dick?”

Babs snorts. “You think we broke up for uncomplicated reasons?” she asks. “I love him. Always have. Probably always will. But he’s not the love of my life — and when he asked me, straight-out, about that…”

Her voice trails off. Dinah’s a little confused. “Babs, hon?” she asks. “What are you trying to say? That you’re in love with this Katarina girl and she’s screwing with you? Because I’ll kick her ass, I will track her down and knock her narrow ass into next Tuesday.”

Babs laughs, but there’s nothing happy about it, and this little knot is forming in Dinah’s stomach because. Because Babs is hurting, and because she knows why Babs is laughing.

“Irony’s a gay bitch, huh?” Babs says bitterly. “The love of my life is my straight, Arrow-loving best friend. Even Kat would probably feel bad for me, and then blackmail me forever about it.”

“She’s gonna feel bad because I’m going to kick her ass into a month from next Tuesday,” Dinah says, looking at Barbara’s expression and feeling a squeeze in her heart.

She’s known. On some level, she’s always known. How could Dinah not realize? Dinah always came back because Babs loved her. Loved her more than anyone, and Dinah loves her right back.

Just not that way. And Babs knew that, always did, and they hurt each other a million ways because Babs is in love with her and Dinah’s a straight girl and if Dinah could, she’d kiss the pain right out of Babs.

But she can’t. It would be a lie, and lies don’t heal.

“I’m sorry,” Dinah says, pulling Barbara in for a long hug. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

There’s a long, deep breath, and then Dinah feels rather than sees Babs start to cry, sobs choking out of her like something in her has split and broken. Barbara Gordon doesn’t cry often, and Dinah holds her tight, letting her come apart in Dinah’s arms.

Because she’s not going to let her go. You don’t let love go, she thinks, even though it hurts. And Babs doesn’t love easily. It would kill her to lose Dinah over this, and it would kill Dinah to lose Barbara.

“It doesn’t get any easier,” Barbara whispers, clutching Dinah’s hair. “I thought, I can let her go, it makes me happy to see her happy. It does. I love when you’re happy. But I lose you and something in my life goes flat. It’s champagne without the bubbles and now Kat is back in my life and she’s threatened my dad and I used to be GOOD at this. I’m Oracle, I’m fucking Oracle, I eat people like Katarina Armstrong for breakfast, but you’re gone and she sends Lois Lane after me and threatens my dad and all I think is…I need her. I need her like I need to breathe.”

She says it all pretty fast, big sobbing breaths in parts, and Dinah still doesn’t let go.

“Lois Lane?” she murmurs.

“Blackmailed her,” Barbara says primly, and Dinah smiles despite herself, because of course she did. Even when she’s falling apart, Babs is still Oracle and still the best. “Mutually Assured Destruction.”

“That doesn’t always work, I hear,” Dinah says. “What does she have on you? The evil Katarina-woman I’m going to beat up for you, I mean.”

“Dad,” Babs says. “And my identity. And pictures that are probably much, MUCH worse than this that she can show to Dad while he’s being interrogated by her little abuse-of-power squad.”

“So maybe you have to stop hiding,” says Dinah. “You told me, and the world didn’t end, did it? I don’t think hiding deeper is going to work. Truth might.”

Babs looks up at Dinah. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen and she looks like a bag of unwashed ass, but there’s life in there. Life…and love. And gratitude.

“God, I love you,” she says raggedly, and for the first time, Dinah feels the full brunt of that, for better or worse. “I love you, I love you, I’ll never stop loving you.”

“I love you, too. You know that, you big dramatic Bat-queen,” Dinah replies, leaning forward and kissing Barbara on the forehead.

Babs shivers from the touch, and for a long moment, they stay like this, pressed against each other like lovers, sisters, best friends, partners…all the things love could make them.

You don’t give up on love, Dinah thinks, letting Babs rest against her. Not like this, not even in the face of the worst. And that’s why they win, in the end.

Because love is harder than crime, but stronger than evil, if you’re willing to embrace it.


End file.
